They Call Me the Coroner | Top Gun: Maverick

R.I.P. Will

~~Tesha~~

It's funny.

The next couple of seconds are like slow motion.

I don't seem to remember where this all started.

It wasn't the uranium plant that commenced this. It's didn't begin when I joined the Navy.

As I blink at Maverick, the muddled jumble of my mind clears a little.

I can see my dad in a coffin after that car crash. I can see my mother and her love for me dwindle until she took off, leaving me and my sister to fend for ourselves. I can see her forget all knowledge of us, as if she never gave birth to us.

How can you forget someone you brought into the world?

I can see my sister get hitched to Henry and have her kids. A life of her own. While I was happy for her, I still felt completely alone.

I found myself longing for a life I didn't have. One with friends and people who would look at me as if I meant the world to them.

That's all I was asking for.

So, I ran. And that's where it all started.

But once I made a new life, I remember I was so used to my old one, I started making the new look like the old.

I wouldn't let people love me. I wouldn't get too attached. I left them before they had the chance to leave me because I believed that people always leave, and I was scared of being left alone time after time.

But here, standing in front of me, was a man who could have walked away. He had every reason to. He wouldn't have known I was alive. It was just a guess.

Then I realize he never left. Neither did Bradley, or Jake.

I was the one who got up in the plane. I crashed myself. I chose Bradley over Jake. I broke Bradley's heart over and over when all he ever did was stay with me. I got mad at Kim when all she wanted always to have me safe and sound.

It was always me. I was always the one to leave.

Ironically, I am faced with the decision again. A decision in which leaving is the good choice.

It's so freaking hilarious.

So, I laugh.

Jasper makes his way back to the door. His shirt halfway untucked, the side of his suit jacket is ripped and his face is a little bloody, but it's not from any of his wounds that I can see.

A man slinks up behind him almost ready to pounce. I push Mav and glide past Japser, tackling the man. A gunshot goes off right next to my head and things are really quiet after that.

Turns out I just couldn't hear after the gun exploded its bullet almost right on top of my ear.

The man takes one look at me and fear grips his eyes like his worst nightmare has come to life. I feel my stomach aching and my arms feel like noodles, yet I punch him over and over.